Where Are My Keys?

Why do I get the feeling that somehow, the signature won't be his signature??

Seems Eric Holder signed off on the search warrant to search the FOX News reporters private emails:

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists.

"I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs."

So "troubled" that you will do what to Holder, Mr. President?

I wonder what Senator Obama would say about an AG abusing his power?  Let's go to the videotape, shall we?

 

Why does Eric Holder still have a job?

 

Will the Left show as much "outrage" against Big Apple as it does against Big Oil?

I'm not holding my breath.  But the same arguments they make about why Big Oil shouldn't get tax breaks should be directed towards Apple for not paying $44 billion in taxes, right?

We'll see tons of protesters march on DC to protest Apple, right? 

Do as I say..

Not as I do.  Here's Carney in 2007:

In a March 22, 2007 Time Magazine piece co-bylined with Massimo Calabresi, then-Washington Bureau Chief Jay Carney attacked the Bush administration for “its deliberate and aggressive efforts to expand and protect Executive power.”

In the piece, Carney and Calabresi charged that “[President George W.] Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have spent six years expanding presidential powers at the expense of Congress and the judiciary, from authorizing domestic wiretapping to limiting habeas corpus and changing bills through signing statements.”

Carney also complained about the resistance from Bush administration officials to testify on those matters, which at the time included then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

“Just getting Karl Rove and other top White House officials to testify could be as important as anything they might say, since it would set a precedent of sorts as Democrats push to investigate internal White House deliberations on everything from Iraq-war contracting to the use of prewar intelligence,” Carney and Calabresi wrote.

It's not bad enough the IRS targeted Tea Party groups..

Turns out they also shared confidential information with ProPublica:

In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six [2] of those [3] public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

On Friday, Lois Lerner, the head of the division on tax-exempt organizations, apologized [4] to Tea Party and other conservative groups because the IRS’ Cincinnati office had unfairly targeted them. Tea Party groups had complained [5] in early 2012 that they were being sent overly intrusive questionnaires in response to their applications.

That scrutiny appears to have gone beyond Tea Party groups to applicants saying they wanted to educate the public to “make America a better place to live” or that criticized how the country was being run, according[6] to a draft audit cited by many outlets. The full audit, by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, will reportedly be released this week. (ProPublica was not contacted by the inspector general’s office.)  

Before the 2012 election, ProPublica devoted months to showing how[7] dozens of social-welfare nonprofits had misled the IRS about their political activity on their applications and tax returns. Social-welfare nonprofits are allowed to spend money to influence elections, as long as their primary purpose is improving social welfare. Unlike super PACs and regular political action committees, they do not have to identify their donors.

You know how it takes forever to get something you have requested from the Government?  Not in this case:

Just 13 days after ProPublica sent in its request, the IRS responded with the documents on 31 social welfare groups.

They sure wanted to get that information out in a hurry, didn't they?

This is what happens when the Press doesn't do its job, and the Executive Branch is allowed to do whatever it wants.

I'm sure things will be different when the IRS has a significant hand in your private health information.

The same Left that screamed about Bush and FISA wiretaps remain silent..

Kudos to the NYTimes for reporting on this, but don't count on seeing any of the same outrage directed towards President Bush being leveled at President Obama.

The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.

While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.

Still, the plan is likely to set off a debate over the future of the Internet if the White House submits it to Congress, according to lawyers for technology companies and advocates of Internet privacy and freedom.

“I think the F.B.I.’s proposal would render Internet communications less secure and more vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves,” said Gregory T. Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It would also mean that innovators who want to avoid new and expensive mandates will take their innovations abroad and develop them there, where there aren’t the same mandates.”

Priorities..

Yesterday, an NBA player came out of the closet, and by the end of the day, the President of the United States had personally called him to applaud his "courage".

 

This morning, the President of the United States heard for the first time (based on his remarks to the reporter who had asked the question) that whistle-blowers were being prevented from testifying.  To me, the allegations of witness tampering by officials in the State Department (and/or the Administration) would be something I would want cleared up ASAP, if I were in charge. 

As of 245 pm MST, no word from the White House on what the President has learned, or even a statement from him saying that he wants these folks to come forward as soon as possible, to clear things up.

Good think he got out in front of the gay basketball player.  True leadership.

Presumably yesterday, the President turned to one of his advisors and said "Find me Jason Collin's contact information, and set up a call:, and someone did.  He could have just as easily said to that same person(s) this morning, "Find out which of the folks that were in the embassy in Benghazi want to testify, and notify the Congressional Committee handling the investigation that they will be available for questions ASAP."

But he didn't, did he?  I wonder why.

A point-blank admission, and the MSM yawns..

Remember how folks on the Left tried to pin the actions of the crazy guy in Tucson (who shot Gabby Giffords and others) on the "crosshairs" on Sarah Palin's website map?  Remember also how there was absolutely zero evidence that the shooter was aware of the website, or that it contributed to his shooting spree?

Well, what happens when a shooter does admit that a website influenced his behavior?  Front-page news, right?

 

I guess it's only news if it is a Conservative.

How many times do we need to see these examples of double-standards and media bias, before some of the critical thinkers on the Left stop eating what is being spoon fed to them?

 

Why even have a Senate or House?

Is Obama going to do an end-around, and defy the Senate on gun control?

Vice President Biden told White House allies in the gun control fight Thursday that President Obama will be announcing new executive actions on gun violence in the days after the Senate voted down a gun violence bill.

On a conference call with "stakeholders," Biden told gun control advocates that the fight is not over and that eventual action on gun control will come. Press were not invited to the conference call; a participant provided BuzzFeed with access.

"Look I know you're going to say that I'm just being an optimist and I'm trying to put a good face on this. But you know I've been around here a long time and we've already done, because of you, some really good things," Biden said. "Number one, the president is already lining up some additional executive actions he's going to be taking later this week."

After the Newtown shootings, Obama took a number of executive actions to expand research into gun violence and other areas favored by the gun control community. He took the actions without Congressional approval, leading to outrage by some conservatives.

If he does use the Executive Order, I'll be pissed when it first happens.  But then I'll calm down, and remember that Democrats were in support of it, and the President ignoring votes in the Senate; and I know they won't mind when President Palin uses Executive Orders to get her way as well.  At some point, the opposing Party comes into power, and will uses the same tools his predecessors used, and in some case, expand on them (like Obama did with FISA wiretaps, extraordinary rendition, use of drones, targeting American Citizens w/o a warrant, etc.).

Payback is a bitch.  Remember that as you stand idly by, and do nothing.

Clearly a fabricated story, as Obama closed Gitmo the first day he was in office..

Somehow, it is the fault of George Bush:

Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.

I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.

I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I’m sleeping.

There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren’t enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up.

During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not.

It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. As they were finishing, some of the “food” spilled on my clothes. I asked them to change my clothes, but the guard refused to allow me to hold on to this last shred of my dignity.

Funny how the Left was banging the drum daily on Bush and techniques/policy used at Gitmo, and today they are silent.  It's almost as if they had a political axe to grind, and didn't really care about the guys in Gitmo, or something.

All outliers are not equal..

Jezebel points out the obvious, writing that“Gosnell doesn't represent or stand for abortion care in any way. Abortion, done right, is a safe medical procedure.” But this idea of a high-profile case drawing an emotional response, and the attempt to use that emotional response to drive a policy debate, ought to be familiar. Jezebel’s statement, after all, could just as easily have read: “But Adam Lanza doesn't represent or stand for gun ownership in any way. Gun ownership, done right, is a safe practice.” Jezebel notes that "fewer than 0.3% of abortion patients ever experience a complication that requires hospitalization,” according to a pro-abortion rights group. But even according to anti-gun statistics, there were only 33,000 gun-related deaths in 2011 for 300,000,000 guns owned in the country (fewer than .00012 percent). The violent crime rate in the U.S., in fact, is approaching a historical low.

The case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, horrific on its own, is not helpful as a stand-in or argument in the wider debate about abortion and reproductive rights (because what he did is already illegal), just as the case of Adam Lanza, horrific on its own, is not helpful as a stand-in or argument in the wider debate about personal safety and gun rights (because what he did is already illegal).

Full piece is here.  Funny how the Left and the MSM use one of the above examples to illustrate why massive change is needed now, and all but ignore the other.